


One Person Dead From Such is Plenty

by msculper



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, I actually did research for this, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 01:14:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13376997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msculper/pseuds/msculper
Summary: Sometimes he wished he had been there for Nathan’s hanging. To actually see it. Maybe then, he wouldn’t think every mop of unruly blond hair was him.





	One Person Dead From Such is Plenty

It was cold. 

Too cold to be out without a cloak, but here he was: in only his uniform and talking casually to the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. Well, not particularly _ casually _ , but the General’s voice had been the most paternal Ben had ever heard it. “Following our retreat from Brooklyn Heights, I tasked an agent to reconnoiter enemy encampments around Long Island and seek out contacts friendly to our side. His name was Nathan Hale. And he was captured while he was on a mission for me.” Ben’s back straightened at the name, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion and surprise and perhaps denial. “He was hanged as a spy.”

At that, Ben stopped breathing. The only movement was the soft, snowy wind blowing around him. Dead.  _ Hanged _ . He forced in a raw breath. 

General Washington continued on, ignorant of Ben’s panic. “Fortunately, his best friend at Yale, a certain  _ Benjamin Tallmadge _ spoke often of his hometown friends: a whaler named Brewster and a farmer named Woodhull.” He mouthed along with the name Woodhull, if only to prove to himself that some shred of his brain was still engaged, and not reaching back to tepid summers and stifling dormitories. It was to no avail, as Washington droned on about letters and anonymous information that Ben supposed he should be listening to. But the most he could do was look at Washington, a calculated smile momentarily creeping across the General’s face.

“Captain Hale died without friends to support him. We cannot let that happen to Mr. Culpepper.”

“Mr. Culpepper?” Ben asked, his head finally catching up with the conversation enough to pick out a shred of new information.

“We’ll never use the name Woodhull again.” Washington crushed the clandestine egg in his gloved hand - smothering it quicker than a noose around a neck - and stalked back inside, leaving Ben to the chill.

Ben drew in a breath that felt more like a sob and rushed through the snow to the tent he shared with Lieutenant Brewster. Not caring whether his friend was asleep or awake, and not caring that the cold was already seeping up his spine and across his scalp, Ben tore his uniform off and threw it at the foot of his bed. His chest was heaving, straining against the buttons on his waistcoat. Both hands reached up to scrub at his face, finding only moisture from melting snow and tears.

“Benny?” He turned with a jerk to face Caleb, lounging on the cot opposite his own. Ben bit at his bottom lip before answering with as even a breath as he could fake.

“He’s dead.” Caleb quirked his eyebrow in confusion. “Nathan. He’s… he’s been caught and hanged.” He kicked at the chair to his right, letting it hit their desk and fall to the packed earth.

Almost, it seemed, without moving, Caleb stood up and took Ben into his arms, forcing him against his chest. “I’m so sorry Tallboy.” Ben hugged him back, grateful that his solid weight was so different from the lanky skeleton he was used to clutching. When they pulled apart, he wiped at the tears in the corners of his eyes before Caleb could notice. 

“I know how close you two were…” Caleb began.

“No you don’t.” Ben spat, more harshly than he thought he would ever reprimand Caleb. He ducked his head, but not before he could see Caleb lean back with wide, comprehending eyes. “Sorry.”

“Your… best friend is dead, Ben. You have nothing to apologize for.”

“This is a goddamn war, Caleb! People die every day. I’ve killed people! People have died by my hand and I have the nerve to be upset over a boy who knew what he was getting into.”

“You’re allowed to mourn.” Ben shook his head, more out of resignation than contempt. “Do you want to sleep with me tonight?” Caleb’s brown eyes were gentle as he touched Ben’s neck.

Feeling more childlike than he had since Yale, Ben nodded.

Caleb was a warm assurance through the night, even if Ben woke feeling empty on a tear-stained pillow, a steady arm thrown recklessly across his waist.

***

The citizens of New Haven weren’t particularly fond of Yale students, but they were especially unwelcoming on the rare occasions the boys had the chance to invade the town taverns en masse. 

It was also a first year ritual. 

The minute the taverns began dusting off their more wintry brews and putting more wood in their fires in late October, the entire freshman class, with a few upperclassmen in tow, would work their way through New Haven’s best taverns. They would experience the bonding that came from not only getting drunk, but also collectively waking up with the first real hangover of their lives.

Benjamin Tallmadge knew all this and wanted no part in it. His father had warned him against excessive consumption of alcohol, and he valued his father’s advice, at least against vices. It took his roommate near an hour to convince him to tag along, even if he didn’t end up drinking at all. Ben hung towards the back of the forty some boys, attempting to herd them from tavern to tavern without losing any. 

By the third pub, the cobblestones, slick with evening dew, were giving most of the students some trouble. Ben supposed it wasn’t entirely alcohol-induced, as the new shoes his brother had bought him as a present were already sliding and he’d only had a few sips of a pint yet. (The rest of it had been downed by a fellow student, a tipsy blond, who made a show of leaning on the table and asking “Are you going to finish that?” with a flirtatious smile.)

In fact, that very blond had been trailing behind, the alcohol having more and more of an effect as the night went on. He’d slung an uncoordinated arm across Ben’s shoulders, surprisingly heavy for how inebriated and lanky he was. Slurring something about Aristotle into Ben’s ear, he slipped on some leaves and caught his balance with a much-too-confident arm across Ben's torso. 

“Careful,” he mused. “Awful slippery tonight and we'd hate to break that pretty head of yours.” Ben wondered if this wasn't some drunken bullying attempt until he saw the boy's smile, shimmering like the stars above. 

“Are you alright to walk on your own?” Ben asked, easing himself out of his grasp. “Mr…?”

“ _ Jesus Christ _ just call me Nathan. I'm not old enough for all that.” He - Nathan - responded, stumbling closer to the gutter with every step. 

“Fine, Nathan - are you alright to walk by yourself?”

A giggle bubbled out of Nathan’s throat, against Ben’s neck. “Between you and me? I don’t really trust anyone here to help me, so…” He trailed off with his hand flapping circles in the air as a silent ‘et cetera.’

“So you’ll stay back here with me?”

“Thank you for the offer, you’re a great pal,” Nathan purred. 

And just like that - Benjamin Tallmadge had a best friend.

***

He had been unceremoniously shoved out of Sackett’s tent, the man’s blood still warm and tacky on his fingers. Ben’s heart was still beating with aching pulses, bruising itself against his ribs.

If anyone deserved to be in there, it was Ben. Not whatever bullshit medic had been close enough to hear his screaming or the privates with nothing better to do.

If anyone deserved blame, it was Ben. Had he convinced Washington that little bit more, Sackett might have lived. 

Now the ever-expanding graveyard in his head added another headstone that fueled a burning ache in his chest. Had he stalled them just a little longer, both of them might be alive. Nathan and now Nathaniel.

But of course Washington had the final authority. It was a special mission for Washington, after all, that had killed Nathan. Washington even admitted it. Now Washington hadn’t heeded Ben’s warning, and that had killed Nathaniel. 

Sackett had been many things to Ben, he realised, as his blood settled into the grooves of Ben’s fingertips and snaked around to his knuckles. He was a father figure, sure, and a friend, and reminded Ben of a memory he had yet to remember. But he was also studious, conceited, and stubborn as hell: he showed Ben what Nathan would have grown into, had God granted him the time. And now even that resemblance, however painful, was gone. 

The men carried Sackett’s body out of the tent. Washington and his life guard walked towards him, pausing out of respect as the stretcher passed before advancing into the tent. 

Ben turned to join them, all-too-aware of the red coating his hands.

***

“You’re an idiot, Pythias.”

“So what?”

“You just lost fifteen straight card games, you poltroon.”

Nathan laughed - quite literally - in Ben’s face. “I’m only drunk.”

Ben shoved his shoulder. “You've barely had anything to drink. You’re bad luck.”

“Bad luck, eh? And who exactly helped you with that astronomy exam? Because I promise it was nothing but a stroke of luck that you did not fail.”

Steering Nathan out of the tavern by his shoulders, Ben shook his head. “Yet you were this close to failing both Latin and arithmetic.”

Nathan, for all his moping about inebriation, was stubbornly resisting Ben’s shoving. “Neither of those are particularly relevant, Damon.”

“Oh, but I suppose astronomy is?”

“Of course!” The cool night air ran ghostly fingers across their necks and hands as they escaped the crowded warmth of the tavern. Nathan looked up at the dark sky with expectant eyes. “The stars are always relevant, you know. They hold our fates.” His open mouth twitched into hope-laced smile. Ben had never seen him so reverent. After several moments, he finally turned to look at Ben, his eyes bursting at the seams with wonder. 

“You’re still an unlucky bastard.”

With a cackle, Nathan jumped on Ben, his knuckles digging into Ben’s scalp. “Leave my mother out of this!”

The boys drew the eyes of the few citizens still out on the street at that hour with their roughhousing before feeling guilty enough to walk the several blocks back to the dormitories. The air was brisk, lining their lungs with its icy breath. The dark sky dripped silence between them, until Nathan - in a silent pact with the stars - had the gall to break it.

“You really find me unlucky?”

Ben regarded his friend, taking in the tight worry in his brow. “Only at cards. Perhaps draughts as well but we haven’t played at that yet.” Nathan’s brilliant smile was contagious. “Although you’re not nearly as lucky as you could be.” His eyebrow rose in a challenge, chuckling as Nathan pushed his shoulder.

“I’m offended, Benjamin.” Light and laughter danced in his green eyes. “As if you could even prove it.”

A plan hatched in Ben’s head, or perhaps the cold wound into his ears and left a wicked idea. He began untying the cravat around his neck, ignoring Nathan’s look of confusion. “Tie this around your eyes.”

“You pranking me, Tallmadge?”

“Hear me out, idiot.” Ben rolled his eyes and stooped to pick up loose stones at their feet. “Blindfold yourself, and throw these rocks at that building. If you truly are lucky, you’ll miss any windows. If you are, in fact, unlucky, well…” 

Nathan smacked him on the arm. “That’s the Dean’s house! No way in hell-”

“If you’re lucky it won’t be a problem.” Holding out his cravat and the stones, he waited for Nathan to accept his challenge with a self-satisfied smirk.

“Fine.” Nathan secured the ends of the cravat behind his head and held one rock in his hand, weighing it against the breeze. In quick succession, he sent the half dozen stones towards the imposing brick building, only taking the cravat from his eyes when he heard glass breaking. 

A woman yelled inside and profanities spewed from the shattered holes in four of the windows. Ben took off sprinting down the street, his laugh trailing behind him. By the time he ducked in the front door to the dormitory, Nathan had caught up with him - Ben’s cravat loose around his neck, his cheeks a blotchy red, and a look of seething anger in across his eyes. Ben was trying to force down a snicker when  Nathan drew him in by the front of his waistcoat like he was going to strike him. He even raised his hand in a fist, but left it suspended above his head as his eyes flickered down to Ben's lips. A breath passed. His eyes jumped back up to meet Ben's and an unstoppable, uncontainable laugh bubbled out of his throat. 

In the half-lighted foyer, they collapsed onto the floor, holding their sides and trying not to wake the students sleeping above them. Ben’s breath caught as he looked across the room and noticed something in Nathan’s green eyes, realising he never wanted to look at another face in his life.

***

He deserved this. He was a scoundrel and a liar and a traitor, even more so than the rest of them. Bradford deserved to die.

And Ben knew. By god, he almost killed him with his own two hands when he refused to comply or even acknowledge the error of his ways.

But, damn it all, he didn’t deserve to go like this. 

Granted, he had thrown off the Continental blue of his own accord, but to be stripped of the decency to wear a jacket and be clothed at his execution? To be manhandled onto a roughly built platform in the pouring rain and forced into a shoddily knotted noose? 

And that was before it all went to hell.

Before he swung, halfway between breathing and choking, saliva and blood frothing at his lips. Before they ended it the only way anyone knew how: a bullet to the chest. And half the camp - Caleb included - too disgusted or violently engaged to notice any complications. 

But Ben saw every second of it, his knees and brain locked to keep him from moving or even reacting. 

By the time the crowd had dispersed to find drier accommodations and Washington had given Ben a firm, fatherly nod with a definite note of finality, he and Caleb began the long walk back to their tent. Ben noted that both of them were shaking. Caleb out of what Ben assumed was adrenaline and tension, and Ben out of something he couldn't quite place. 

Caleb swept aside the flap of the tent for Ben to enter and produced an inexplicable flask of whiskey out of thin air. “Thank shite that’s over, Benny.” He collapsed into the chair at their shared desk, much rougher than Ben expected the chair could handle, and took a swig.

“Caleb, now’s not the time,” Ben scolded, crossing his arms against the wet chill beginning to settle against his skin.

His friend rolled his eyes. “You wanted him gone as much as I did.”

“There are more humane ways.”

Caleb regarded Ben over the brown bottle he held to his lips. He lowered it with a sigh. “What’s this really about?” Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, Caleb looked like Sam. Maybe it was the clean shaven cheeks, or the concerned eyes, or the careful syllables. But in any case Caleb seemed to have transformed from Ben’s devil-may-care partner in crime to the image of a stern, yet loving brother he had lost. 

“What if Nathan went like that?” At that, Caleb softened and looked at the ground. “What if it was rushed and ill-conceived and… what if he suffered?”

After a moment of careful consideration, Caleb asked him yet another question. “Did you love him?”

Ben wiped a hand across his nose, catching the water that had begun to drip down his face. “Yes, of course.” 

Caleb’s nod seemed resigned, an unreadable expression clouding his face. “Then you would have known if he suffered. You would have felt it.” Caleb’s smile was tight. “Besides, how could he have suffered if…” he trailed off, picking his words carefully, “his thoughts were with you, in the end?”

Ben swept off his hat and cradled it against his chest. “Is it awful that I don’t even know if it was raining when he…”

“It didn’t.” The ferocity of Caleb’s reply shocked him. “The hell kind of story book ending would that have made?”

***

“And that, my esteemed opposition, is  _ precisely _ why women should obtain the right of self-representation in court,” Nathan drawled with an exaggerated bow, winking at the boys on the other side of the courtyard debate. The few students and young women who had gathered to watch the spectacle clapped in appreciation and admiration, signaling the conclusion of the impromptu discussion. Nathan and Ben took turns shaking hands with the two boys - Jeremiah and Henry - who had been defeated, as per usual. It was all good fun, despite the glares and lewd gestures exchanged.

Nathan gestured with his chin over Ben’s shoulder. “Looks like you’ve captured someone’s attention.” A young woman sporting a fan for the mid-spring heatwave giggled to her friend when Ben turned and noticed her. He smiled when he saw the pure elation across her face. “Unless blushing blondes aren’t your type.” Nathan was sporting his usual nonchalant, sarcastic grin when Ben twisted back around. 

Ben’s grin shifted into a nervous flutter of his lips as he stepped close enough not to be overheard. “She’s alright, but I prefer feisty blonds who win debates in the middle of campus.” He willed himself to keep his eyes trained on Nathan’s face despite the desperate pounding of his heart. Watching Nate’s jaw drop in surprise before raising into an incredulous smirk, Ben was only vaguely aware of their lack of privacy. 

With a nervous laugh bubbling behind his teeth and gleaming eyes, Nathan grabbed Ben’s arm. “Come with me.” 

They all but sprinted to their dorm room, only pausing for the briefest moment when they passed the Dean. 

As soon as they were alone, Nathan dropped his look of childlike excitement and wonder to one of pure lust and want. He pressed Ben back against their door, cradling his jaw with one hand and locking them in with the other. After several ragged breaths, he finally pressed his lips to Ben’s, stifling the sigh that had been building in Ben’s chest.

Ben kissed back like his life depended on it, coming off the door in his pursuit. Nathan stilled him with a hand on his hip and a laugh against his mouth, slowing to a painful pace across Ben’s bottom lip and jaw. He hummed against the skin beneath Ben’s ear, “My dear Damon, you will ever be the death of me.”

At that, Ben made the mistake of resituating himself against the door, only succeeding in bringing Nathan’s hips closer to his. The hand at his waist curved down towards his thigh. 

He wrenched his head away, holding Nathan back with loosely-held fists. His brow furrowed when the tension in his breeches didn’t lessen at the distance.

“I… I’m sorry, Ben.” Nathan had the nerve to look ashamed, as if he had been the one in the wrong. He turned away from Ben, running a hand down his queue. 

Ben caught up with him, wrapped his arms around Nathan’s chest, and tucked his chin over Nathan’s shoulder. “I should be sorry.” He chanced a kiss to Nathan’s neck. “It was just… so much and I’ve never done anything like this before so I didn’t know what would happen… bodily-speaking… and I want you more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life and I just want to go slowly and enjoy it because God only knows how often we can do this once classes start ramping up and -” Nathan spun in his arms and cut off his rambling with a kiss somehow more searing than the last.

Ben went dizzy at the simple sensation of Nathan pushing his jacket down his arms and nearly lost sight when Nathan broke their kiss to sink to his knees in front of him.

Although the next several hours passed in more of a haze than Ben wanted, none of it paralleled waking up next to Nathan with sunrise in his hair and love in his eyes, tracing constellations in the freckles on his back. “Your bountiful love, what tongue can recite? It breathes in the air and shines in the light.”

Nathan sleepily burrowed his face deeper in the pillow. "Did you just quote a hymn at me?"

With a fond smirk, Ben raised his bare shoulder in silent admission. 

"I never thought I would hear such ardent blasphemy from the son of a preacher." The single eye Ben could see held a mischievous gleam. 

Ben shifted to cover the stars on Nathan's back with his lips instead of his fingertips. "I suppose there are a great many things you never expected from this son of a preacher."

***

When Ben received word that General Arnold’s treacherous disappearance was coupled with the discovery of a man in the woods wearing plain clothes and claiming to be part of the British Army, his first thought was of the similarities between the case at hand and that of Nathan. 

Even more, Major Andre - the man they captured - was a gentleman through it all. He complied with every question and interrogation, exchanging pleasantries with the officers he met. He was gracious to Hamilton for attempting to defend him. Ben even noticed the way he interacted with Abigail: genuinely upset to be leaving her and holding her against his chest, letting her cry. 

The carriage ride to his execution further solidified Ben’s opinion of Andre. He had kind eyes and a practiced relaxedness that filled the carriage. He even apologized for Nathaniel Sackett’s death. An unlikely thing, in war: to apologize for waging it well, despite the risks of the business. When Andre asked after the one thing Ben vowed never to voice, the key actors in his little play of spies, he instead answered him with the first thing he could think of.

“I had a classmate at Yale College by the name of Nathan Hale. I followed him into the army in ‘76. He was tracked and caught by Robert Rogers and subsequently hanged as a spy.”

“And you think his case and mine alike?” 

Ben could have laughed.  _ Where would you like me to start? The hair? The reckless streak? The executions only weeks apart on the calendar? _ “He did his duty for his country, you did yours for your King. I want you to know that I see the honor in both.”  _ And the terrible irony in dying for the birth of the next regime, or republic, or regrettable mistake. _

“Then you are mistaken,” his adversary admitted, almost defensively. “I didn’t do it for the King. I did it for a woman.” Andre was quiet, as if he was only confessing it to himself for the first time. “That is the loss I regret more so than my own life.” Ben wasn’t surprised in the least when he alluded to a romantic entanglement with the new Mrs. Arnold. He figured there had been some way the two men had met and begun colluding.

But the striking resemblance between Ben and the other side of his metaphorical coin caught him off guard. He was forced to look out the window at the already monotonous New York foliage.

He thought about Nathan again as he stood under the massive oak they had chosen for the execution and watched his once-nemesis climb the steps to his death. 

Nathan, for all his obnoxious confidence, was a kind and generous person (at least to people’s faces). He hoped Nathan would have thought of him, until the end. 

Andre climbed into the wagon of his own accord, slipped the noose over his own head, and tied a handkerchief around his eyes. Ben could have sworn he heard the sound of shattering glass and laughter caught in the wind. Andre’s last words were simple request, spoken as he timidly and humbly held the cloth out of his eyes: “I pray that you all bear me witness that I meet my fate like a brave man.” Then his eyes caught someone in the crowd and he stiffened.

Ben followed his line of sight to see Mrs. Arnold. The Continental blue cape she wore, he suspected, to appear something she was not and perhaps draw Andre to her blue eyes once more. 

And to think that Nathan could have been seeing a similar apparition in his final moments.

The wagon wheels groaned as they were pulled away, leaving Andre to hang. After letting him suffer just long enough so as not to seem he truly  _ pitied _ the enemy officer, Ben caught Caleb’s eye. Ben stilled himself with a long exhale before they pulled Andre’s legs, ending it as cleanly as they could.

Slowly, the gathering began to disperse, each paying their respects to the suspended corpse. The excitement of a public hanging, it seems, had worn off.

Ben found Mrs. Arnold, extending the sketch Andre had pressed into his hand in the carriage. “His thoughts were with you, in the end.” Her eyes gleamed with tears as she unfolded, and quickly refolded the piece of parchment. “It’s only a matter of time before your role in all of this is discovered. I suggest you cross the lines as quick as you can manage.” The last thing this affair needed was another victim. The last thing this  _ war _ needed was another fiery blond idealist trapped behind enemy lines with people who pretended to care for them.

“Why?”

He wanted to respond to her, he really did. He wanted to tell her that it would be easier that way. That she may not ever really realise how much she would miss him. Or how far he was, now. He wanted her to know that sometimes running away, or throwing yourself into something - anything else was better than nothing. That sometimes all you could do was move on and hide the tears behind the shroud of solitude and starlight.

The Dragoons were the last ones left under the oak. Ben watched as his men dragged themselves over to the corpse to begin to let him down. 

He almost made them stop. Andre looked nearly peaceful up there, swinging in the breeze and finally untormented by war.

***

“Nathan, you’re not going.”

“If I don’t, who will?” Nathan looked so tired. More tired than finals. More tired than after his first year of teaching. More tired than he’d ever looked. 

“I don’t care. Someone will have to and I’d rather it be someone other than you.” Ben laid a cautious hand on Nathan’s neck. 

Nathan laughed a dry, humorless laugh. “Even Lieutenant Brewster?”

“Nathan.” Too chastising. Ben slid his hand up to hastily grip at Nathan’s face with a sigh. “I love you and I need you to be safe. You won’t be safe anywhere in the city, we both know that.”

“Benjamin, none of us are safe. That’s why we’re fighting this war.” Nathan’s eyes were pleading in the moonlight. 

Ben sighed. “Your height. And your laugh. And that damned scar on your cheek. You’ll stick out worse than a harlot in church.” Nathan had the decency to laugh, a real laugh this time, even if it was quiet and breathy and over too quickly for Ben’s liking. Yet Ben couldn’t help but notice that he appeared the only one shaken by the suddenness of Nathan’s leaving. A warm hand settled at Ben’s waist. Ben hadn’t the energy to admonish him. “Fine, Nate. As you will.”

Nathan left a chaste kiss on Ben’s forehead before pulling away from his touch. They turned to walk back towards camp. Someone would miss them eventually. The silence between them was filled with the soft chorus of wildlife around them and the distant murmur of New York City nightlife. “So what is between you and Lieutenant Brewster, anyway?”

Nathan howled in laughter as Ben nearly knocked him into a tree, the blush across his nose just visible in the waning light. He wheeled Ben back in, all moping and begrudging, with an arm around his shoulders and a kiss against the side of his head. Ben looked skyward in a mock prayer, eliciting another round of beautiful laughter and earning him a kiss on the jaw.

The leaves above their heads were just turning at the edges, and would shift from the color of Nathan’s eyes to the color of his hair in just a few weeks. Ben was glad they would reflect his beauty in his absence.

***

Maybe someday he would stop thinking every mop of unruly blond hair was him. Maybe someday he’d forget the phantom touches across his torso. Maybe someday he’d be able to walk through York City without searching every crowd for someone he wouldn’t find.

But for now, Ben had a job, and a wife, and a house, and that was a start.

Someone in town had Nathan’s laugh, but Ben had learned that it was probably just his way of checking in on him from beyond. 

But for now, Ben would enjoy the freedom only brought on by the deaths of people like Nathaniel Sackett, and Samuel Tallmadge, and John Andre, and Nathan Hale. For now, he would gaze at his wife over dinner, and donate to Yale when he could, and would keep the blond enigma of his youth alive in his dreams.

***

The ground beneath his feet crinkled with a thin layer of frost, woven from the dew of the night before. The night which Nathan had spent locked in a nondescript room, scribbling letters to his father and Benjamin before the stub of a candle he'd been brought could burn out. He'd pulled at his hair and run dry fingertips over the scar on his cheek for hours trying to remember any prayer he'd ever been taught. It had all been for naught, as he woke to his door being beaten in just before sunrise.

A small crowd of people had gathered to witness the events of the morning. They turned to watch Nathan march up the dirt path toward the tree at the corner. Many of them were women, he noted: some of them the wrong sort (stumbling home from all corners and brothels of New York City), and some were the  _ other _ wrong sort (with uneven wooden crosses pressed to their bosoms for the hopeful redemption of a sinner). 

The Scot with the tainted breath and feather in his cap leaned on the tree and picked at his fingernails. Nathan's shoulders tensed as he remembered being called 'son' in a rough accent and clapped across the shoulder in what seemed a friendly gesture. He also remembered the gleam in his eye and the devil in his smile as Nathan was suddenly surrounded by Queen's Rangers and clubbed over the head in the dead of night. His cousin was there, shifting his weight from foot to foot and refusing Nathan's eye, hiding behind his glasses and Bible.

Nathan froze at the foot of the ladder, his feet shuffling against the soil, rapidly losing his charade of a proud, composed man.

"Sam!" he called out to his cousin, "Sam, can't you do something? Please?"

He looked on in horror at his own family's inaction. As the two men who had been guiding him along the road from his impromptu prison forced his stumbling feet up the ladder, hot tears began to stream down his cheeks.

"God, please help me! Please, God!" He felt the noose slip down over his wet eyelashes and the gunpowder marks on his skin that could have - should have - killed him so much earlier than this. "Please?" He whispered to the air in front of him. The rapid breaths that caught in his throat pulsed against the rough rope. 

He felt raindrops on his head and hands.

"The accused, Nathan Hale, having been found guilty of espionage and treason against his majesty King George III, is sentenced to death by hanging." Samuel then opened his Bible, cleared his throat, and read, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me." He slowly closed the book and wiped his glasses on his handkerchief. "Have you any last words?"

Nathan looked over the crowd one last time before settling back on his cousin. He laughed an awful, wicked laugh before spitting, "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do." 

As painful and horrifying as it was, he kept the smirk on his face as he turned back towards the crowd and bowed before them.

He felt the ladder kicked out beneath him.

In the split second his body jerked forwards, he looked back up at the gathering, finding a familiar set of blue eyes, blond hair, and Continental blue standing in the center.

He sobbed out a grateful, contented laugh.

Then everything went black.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Murder in the City" by the Avett Brothers


End file.
